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Five FM iPod Transmitters Reviewed
An anonymous reader writes "If you want to listen to your iPod or other audio player in your car, but you don't have a cassette deck or a swanky I.C.E. system, then the answer is to transmit the music over FM to the car's radio. HEXUS.lifestyle reviews five FM transmitters for the iPod and friends, investigating how well these devices cope with broadcasting music over a 2 meter-or-so radius. Some readers will be aware that it's been less than a year since these became legal in the UK, so the majority of iPodding Brits have only recently discovered that they can tune into their MP3 collection on the road."
Hey, good looking, I'll be back to pick you up later !
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
> The five products reviewed all have backlit LCD screens, a radio bandwidth of 88.1 to 107.9MHz and switch off automatically about 60 seconds after the audio signal stops.
Very nice! (seriously)
I bought a unit that did NOT turn off after the audio signal stopped and I frequently forgot to turn it off manually...which resulted in the batteries being dead 90% of the time. Whatever unit that you buy, I suggest looking for one that has this critical feature.
Also, if you live in a populated area, make sure that you get one that has a broadcast frequency is FULLY tunable...not just selectable between a handful of discrete values. I live in DC and you are hard pressed to find an unoccupied slice of frequency.
I like that they at least threw a bone to us non-iPod-ers. But still, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to find accessories for non-iPod mp3 players. I thought the idea of everything uses a standard headphone jack would be good enough. But, I was wrong.
I personally have the Belkin one, and I hate it. It has horrible transmission and I have a hard time when it's more then 1 foot away from the antenna. There's been times when I've touched my radio's antenna to the unit, and still got nothing better than the FM station in the next city over.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
He got me pretty good. He took over my radio when I was having a few friends over and we were listening to a weekly jazz program on NPR. I was scratching my head trying to figure out why NPR wasn't playing jazz.
I could see how this could be alot of fun in my neighborhood if you could pull up to some jacknut who is blasting rap music at the redlight and pump something funny into their radio (barney theme song?) . Pumping some tenacious d into someones car with a NPR sticker on the back might be pretty funny as well.
Like I said someone did this to me and I was baffled until they told me what was going on.
I live in NYC. There are no unused frequencies. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. There were a few before the FCC relaxed rules on small stations a couple of years ago. Now there's nothing left.
I used to use these devices (of all brands), but in the last 2 years or so they have become completely, absolutely, 100% useless in NYC, and I'm sure it's the same in other major cities.
And when I finally broke down and hardwired it, I was amazed at the difference in sound quality, and to this day wonder why I didn't do this years ago.
There is a story going round that truckers in their convoys are broadcasting music to each other and are getting a great deal better than 2 M radius. The guy that told me the story gave me the details, which I forgot.
Anyway, the idea isn't new. There were similar products for playing one's Walkman over the radio. There was also a device that played music (maybe from a Discman) over the radio by inserting it into the cassette player. (Guess we can't do that any more.)
Here's one from Belkin that I just picked up a few weeks ago. Charger/Transmitter in one. Also can run off of iPod power, though it's kind of power hungry, so you can't run it for hours on end. But that's alright because most of the time I use it the car, so it's plugged in to the charger any way.
IMO they all suck for transmission quality compared to transmitters that physically connect between the antenna and radio. Doesn't XM have something like this? Could you hack something together using an average OTA FM transmitter?
Personally, I've never had a good experience with an FM transmitter. I bought a Griffin iTrip for about forty dollars, and it wouldn't work unless it was on the corner of the dashboard next to the antenna. It chewed through my iPod's batteries, and even when the radio could pick its signal up the sound quality was mediocre at best.
Then my friend gave me another transmitter that worked better than the iTrip, but after a while it broke and the sound only came out of one speaker in my car.
Now I just burn CDs. They aren't as convenient as an iPod, but they sure do make everything easier (not to mention cheaper).
I tried a few without good results and I live in a rural area. Even on a good channel the sound quality is bad.
Nothing is going to beat a direct AUX input or an FM modulator. Using Pioneer as an example, accessories for the Pioneer p-bus range from $20 to $60 to add RCA inputs on units that don't have a factory AUX input. An FM modulator can be had for under $40. You'll need a power cord for your MP3 player, but the sound quality makes up for it.
Your also not limited to just an iPod. I can hook up my Nomad or notebook and I have the setup our 3 vehicles. works great.
I occasionally find it amusing to tune my car radio to FM 87.9, which (in the U. S.) is the default setting for most of these FM transmitter gadgets. I commute on Route 128 in Massachusetts so there is plenty of company, and more often than not there is an audible signal on 87.9.
Mostly it seems to be people listening to Howard Stern on Sirius Satellite Radio, but you also get a sampling of other satellite stations and (most likely) iPods.
The signal will usually be audible for the better part of a minute. Oddly enough, I've never managed to identify the car doing the transmission. You'd think you could tell from the positions of the cars around you and the strength of the signal, but I can't.
I discovered this because I have an iPod FM transmitter, set for 87.9 myself (after much experimentation I was never able to find any less-used channel).
What seems perverse that the signals from other cars' transmitters are not only strong enough to hear when my transmitter is off, they are strong enough to produce annoying an audible interference when my own transmitter, inside the car, is on. You'd think a transmitter two feet from the radio would totally overpower that must be at least forty feet away with two car body's worth of shielding in between, but no.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It wasn't illegal to buy or sell FM transmittors in the UK. However it was illegal to use an FM transmittor. I have had an iRadio for about 2 years now (in the UK). It would have been incredibly hard for the police to catch you actually using the transmitting capability. Owning it wasn't illegal, just using it.
All the transmitting devices I have seen are FM based, and as some a number of people have mentioned trying to find an empty frequency is not always easy. Given that there are more free AM channels, I have always wondered why some of these devices don't support AM.
I have the iTrip and it works well enough, though it is really only a backup solution. I prefered solution is cabeled:
- In my living room I have my stereo system next to my TV, with an AUX cable going under the carpet to where my sofa is, which I plug my iPod into
- In my car I still have a tape player, so I just use cassette adaptor
- I have one friend who added an AUX cable to his car stereo, which can be used for iPods and the likes
Everywhere else the iTrip does the job, but you do need to be need to be close to the stereo's FM pickup and be sure to choose a station where there is static.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I bought a Kensington Pico. The first day, I plugged it to my 5th gen. iPod, and it worked nicely. When I unplugged it, my iPod didn't turn off again. I tried everything, from restore factory settings to physically open it and unplug the battery. Nope. It doesn't turn off, and the battery dries up in no time... (sigh)
I use my iPod in my car with an FM transmitter occasionally and find that the iPod's interface is totally unsuitable for use while driving. Using the scroll wheel, it's very hard to accurately pick out a particular item from a menu without looking. I'd rather not use the thing than pull over to switch songs or pick out a different podcast.
Has anyone had luck with more integrated iPod-in-the-car options? Perhaps one with buttons?
I got a $99 Sony from Best Buy.
I installed an Eclipse CD player in my SUV a few months ago with the intention that I could install the iPod interface in it if I decided that I didn't get good enough quality or reception in the iTrip I purchased for my wifes car. Sure enough, I was ordering the $50ish iPod interface from Circuit City less than a week later. There are some quirks with it, but overall it's much better. It uses the Eclipse data bus so I can add a HD tuner to it later for regular radio (the HD Tuner is something like $300, so I'm holding off on that) for a bit. The sound quality is just like listening through headphones since there's no chance of losing signal going through the air. I actually have the iPod hidden under my armrest so I never have to mess with it, and can control it only through my receiver. I have to say getting to some of the features are somewhat clunky, but it works great otherwise. Alpine has a good interface for doing the same, but I changed over to Eclipse because of the price of the Alpine iPod interface, and the fact that I don't like the large knob on the new Alpine decks...they just seem cheap when you can wobble the knob all around. All in all, no more FM transmitter for me....if you can't directly interface the iPod with your head unit and don't have a Aux Input, at least get a FM Modulator that will plug directly into your antenna line...there's definitely a difference.
I use the Belkin adapter with my laptop and really good sounding FM radio to provide audio from DVDs. Sounds better than computer speakers and outside a car its range is OK.
That spectrum is occupied by TV channels 5 and 6, BTW.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
aka Kensington Universal FM Transmitter (available from Amazon.com) it was heads and shoulders above my previous Sony DCC-FMT3 Car FM Stereo Transmitter which I litterally had to attache the magnet from the antenna to my trucks arial. it also muffled the sound an any sudden jump of music like a loud drum beat.
I purchased the kensington to use in rental cars over the summer, and with the first trip out of the way I was impressed, traveling from Tulsa, OK though Rogers AR to Branson Mo, and then down trough AR to Dallas TX then back up to OK City to go back to Tulsa. we had to change the freq about 4 times the entire trip, and overall we were quite happy with it. If you are looking for flawless sound you would be better off getting something the doesnt go through the FM band, but for rental cars it does the trick just fine
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/vacant
plan you trip with some presets!
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I bought an iTrip a couple of years back but was very dissapointed with it. Not only was the sound quality terrible at it's best, it was impossible to find an unused frequency when in a built up area. Plus, on long journeys you are forever retuning the thing as you move from one area to the next, chasing unused frequencies.
I then looked into an expensive iPod compatible stereo, but finally went for a 16 euro faux cassett type adapter. Works perfectly. I've only had to replace it once when the wire broke. One thing you have to do though is to oil the mechanism a little to stop it squeaking.
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
The lib dem MP for Bath (and LD shadow sec for culture and sport) who started the ball rolling on making personal FM transmitters legal
I tried an iTrip a couple of years ago and wanted to throw it out the window every time I used it, the sound quality was so bad. Turned out my problem was partly in my Subaru Outback, the FM antenna is in the rear window, not the front window. I wasn't about to leave the iPod in the trunk all the time, so I bought another universal FM transmitter that could plug into the trunk power socket, and then ran an extension cable to the audio out of the ipod. Works much better, but still not great. If you, like me, have an intense dislike for static and distortion, stay away from FM transmitters.
It would be a good idea if these were universally adaptable. (2 broken ipods in a little over a year).
http://www.energy-onix.com/HTML/Catalog%20Sheets/S tealth3060100.html
:)
hahahaha. just dont tell the fcc
Tried a couple of these (the Belkin in particular really sucked). I finally settled on the iRiver AFT100. It plugs right into the cigarette lighter plug and has a 1/8" plug. It's get just enough signal strength and the audio is loud enough. No batteries required, 3 presets and covers the whole FM band.
r ansmitter.aspx It works great but it really isn't very convenient to use in the car.
The Belkin had low audio, so that when the signal was fading due the weak transmitter the noise was deafening. It was extremely frustrating and I took great joy in destroying it.
Another really good one is the CCrane FM transmitter. http://www.ccrane.com/radios/fm-transmitters/fm-t
I drive a 2001 Renualt Laguna and it has athermic heat-reflecting glass for the windows. One of the side-effects of these are that signals, such as GPS, radio, etc, have a really hard time penetrating the windows.
When I tried using one of these FM transmitters with my music player (I don't use an iPod) I had problems, as the radio aerial is on the outside of the car. So I bought a Sony head unit, with a USB socket on the front, for £100. Now I can plug in any USB mass storage device or USB music player - it even plays playlists I have created.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
I know, I know, this is about FM transmitters. Give them up and go spend a couple bills on one of the new low end Alpine head units.
;-)
Like this one (9883, $200) or this one (9885, $300) and then drop in their dedicated $30 ipod adapter. That's what - $230...about 40 pounds, nowadays, right? (I kid! and no, I don't know how to put the symbol in slashcode)
Best audio connection, browsing by all the ways you can browse the iPod text interface, and song info on the screen. I'm certain the UK versions are similar (Alpine shows the same adapter for Alpine-Europe). Yes, it's more money than a cheap FM transmitter , but the difference is pretty phenominal, and there's no worries about getting tramped on by a commercial station or someone else's adapter. And no looking down, fiddling with the ipod on the passenger seat (you can ignroe the road while you look at the head unit
I actually purchased the head unit first, then the ipod to go with it. For $70 I picked up an old gen 4, 20 gig ipod off ebay. Scratched, battery only takes about 1/2 a charge, but who cares - it's in the glove box with all my tunes (Thanks to foobar and Nero AAC) and powered off the head unit. Cheaper than a disc changer - and much more useful. I never really figured to get an iPod, but for the application, it turns out to be a good item at the right price.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
ive used the belkin one and it was garbage.
i bought a monster cable one. theres two versions (one for ipod) and one for other players.
About 60$. but its been the best fm transmitter ive used.
This won't always help but I found if I retracted my car antenna completely when using my FM modulator ($15 Radio Shack special...) in the car right next to the radio I got very good reception and didn't have external stations to contend with. Now with my new car it doesn't have a external antenna so I do have more interference problems.
For the price of some of those ridiculous I.C.E. systems, you can just throw in an Alpine Full-Speed compatible deck. The cheapest deck with iPod control capability runs about $120, and the iPod cable is $30. You get direct control over the ipod from the deck - the volume knob acts like the scroll wheel to move through menus and songs. The interface isn't exactly "iPod screen in your dash," but it's pretty decent on its own. Plus, it interfaces through the dock connector and powers/charges your iPod while it's connected. On top of that, even the cheap Alpine deck probably has much better internal components than your factory deck, so it might sound a little better (although that's going to be hindered by the crappy paper speakers your car came with).
The only situation where it doesn't work well is if you have steering wheel audio controls or a navigation system with audio interface, but otherwise, I've been very happy with my Alpine setup.
This is /. right?
Let me check the calendar... April1... nope. Sadie Hawkins Day... nope.
Hmmm... WX report for Hell... ah! There it is!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Too bad I can't find an iStuff iCast on Amazon.com or ebay -- looks like a UK-only product.
Just came back from a trip to China where I got my dream player.
This thing is much smaller than an iPod and has a socket that
accepts any USB memory stick. You can also plug in some ear buds.
But it also has an internal FM transmitter. It comes with a power
adapter that plugs into a cigarette lighter. All very small.
Of course, it has automatic discovery that locates all the MP3's
and play lists on the thumbdrive. An LCD display and navigation
buttons allow you to select any of them.
Suddenly, my old pickup truck is a concert hall !!!!!
AND the price at current exchange rates was under $30.00
I've been looking for them in stores here because I want to
buy some for gifts - but I can't find them, and I won't be going
back to China for another 8 to 12 months.
Glad I didn't waste my money on an iPod before traveling.
I bought the Monster-branded one of these a couple months back, and it seems to work fine with my Cowon A2. You have to be careful to keep the output of the player at a reasonable level or you'll over-modulate the tape input; for additional amplification, you turn up the radio itself. Before I bought this I read a number of reviews of media player -> car radio adapters, and they all recommended cassette adapters over FM transmitters. I never have to worry about finding an empty frequency or interference from neighboring transmitters or interfering with neighboring radios.
Plus it only cost about $25.
So, with a Beowulf cluster of these you can have your own radio station?
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-yd5TEirUa9W/cgi-bin/p rodview.asp?i=142FMMOD01/
The device wires in series with your car's antenna (a male and a female plug on the device) so that it doesn't have to send the signal wirelessly. Also, when the device is turned on it blocks the antenna for a large band of frequencies around the transmission frequency so there is NO interference. I'm having some slight gain problems, but it works so much better than those wireless transmitters. You need to wire it in to your car's 12 V and ground but I just picked up a cigarette lighter plug with power switch from Radio Shack and wired it to the device. As such, I ended up having to do no hardware modifications to the car, just get behind the deck to hook up the antenna jacks.
IMHO:
Don't bother with FM transmitters, the Car aerial is on the outside of the car with the (weak) FM transmitter on the insife of the (metal) car.
My idea of the ultimate car "stereo" would have a CF slot that would be populated with a Bluetooth module by default. You could re-populate the CF slot with your own CF card.
Sadly, it doesn't help us now for those of us that have FM only car stereos.
PS: CF is the best as it is not sticky-outy (ie can be flush) and you can fit adaptors for all the other memory sizes.
Anyway, this is my $0.02 worth, hopefully someone will either say: "You want model "123" of brand "XYZ", or will go out and design this into their next car stereo.
Cheers... Clark
£
Thank you for the tip, even if I did have to view the html source (actually, I browsed the posts to look for it before I posted, and just couldn't find an example quickly enough)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I had one of those FM transmiters and it was a horrible experience. Since my van still has a cassette player, I bought one of those fake cassettes that has an input jack attached to it. Sound is not bad at all and it plugs right into the iPod headphone jack.
Ford has come out with some nice mp3 capability over the years...
o pupID=11938&iWinType=1
r ed_accessories.asp?id=25
m ?release=23959
mp3 capable cd players avail on most models http://www.fordvehicles.com/util/uad/index.asp?nP
triptunes for enhanced mp3 player capability http://www.fordaccessoriesstore.com/fas/b2c/featu
audio input jacks on most new models http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_display.cf
And now Sync http://www.syncmyride.com/
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
Does your wondrous device have a name,etc.? I'm interested and will do my best to search it out!
I have one of these: http://www.roadmasterusa.com/fmmod_vr3.php (5th one down - VRFM7W) in my car and it works great. But it sounds like yours does more.
http://www.jazzyengineering.com/ Check them out. I installed one of their kits in my 2005 Outback and it works great!
Seriously, I don't know why it took companies so long to figure it out. Put a 3.5mm stereo jack on THE FRONT of the head unit, and allow any stereo input into it. Should've become a standard feature back when CD players became popular, and even now it's still quite rare (more manufacturers are opting instead for a USB socket on the front, which quite frankly I don't care for; let me just wire in whatever audio source I like!)
Goten Xiao
Thanks for the feedback. The one I bought was probably made by the same
manufacturer. I looks more like the VRFM8BLN, just above yours, because
it has the swivel joint between the cigarette lighter plug and the player
body. It also has the same type of fuse layout.
I'm glad it has the swivel because my stick-shift would clobber it unless
I fold it down.
It has a couple more buttons, and it also has a small, rectangular 2 line
scrolling LCD text display. Depending on the status, the display shows
time remaining, "track", name of the selection and FM frequency. The display
is sharp and clear but very small. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen
such a small font on any other device. (no backlight)
The manufacturer's identity is not given on the device or the operating
booklet. Even though I bought it in Shanghai, the booklet was in English.
Someone else told me that they somtimes appear on ebay, but I can't confirm
this yet. Anyway, thanks again for the pointer. That's exactly what I needed.
Tune my FM transmitter to the popular country station, plug in my Shuffle and turn it up. Fun times. Fun times.
I wanted to send FM from my PC in order to avoid switching audio input between TV/video and my PC on my hi-fi system like I currently do, but I use an external FM radio antenna outside the house and the reception with this was unfortunately not good enough. The sound is ok/good enough for the small radio I have in the bathroom though, so at least I do not have to turn up the volume in the living room to hear PC audio there.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").